This morning, I read stories in the newspaper about President Trump’s executive order stopping immigration from certain countries, the misery his order has caused, and the outrage it has generated. I recognize that our nation has legitimate security concerns. I also believe that we have a moral obligation to offer what support we can to refugees, and that the rights of green-card holders and foreign students should be respected. I don’t know what the right balance between these competing imperatives is. Neither, apparently, do the people in power.

My emotional reaction to these events is twofold: (1) I get discouraged and retreat into my private world; or (2) I get angry and caught up in political wrangling. Neither reaction strikes me as appropriate or good. Somehow I need to (1) stay engaged (2) without falling into bitter cynicism or partisan hostility.

The Christian tradition has much-needed wisdom to offer on this point. In his own ministry, Jesus went out into the world teaching and healing as needed. And Jesus retreated for times of prayer, sometimes alone and sometimes with his closest followers. What I need to find is my own rhythm of activity in the world on the one hand and disciplined spiritual practice on the other.

Activism without a spiritual grounding can easily become bitter and uncompromising. Spiritual practices that are not balanced by action in the world can easily become irrelevant and escapist. Together, the two make it possible for us to stay engaged and to stay grounded at the same time.

Personally I tend more towards spiritual practice, so my challenge is to stay engaged in the broader world. But as part of my contribution, I hope to encourage others to develop a spiritual practice if they do not already have one. We all need to stay grounded, to stay connected to God, as we do whatever it is that we do. How else can we keep going?

Three things happened this weekend that matter to me: the Atlanta Falcons advanced for to the Super Bowl for only the second time in franchise history; President Trump was inaugurated as our 45th president; and St David’s gathered for our annual meeting. I know these things are not equally important!! But they mix together in my soul.

Growing up in Atlanta was a frustrating experience for even casual sports fans. I learned yesterday that all together, Atlanta’s professional sports teams have played 168 seasons. In all those seasons, only one team—the Braves—have ever won a single national title. Rarely has an Atlanta team even come close. I don’t much follow football, but I am excited at the prospect that an Atlanta team might actually win it all. To win by beating New England would be particularly sweet!

I am frankly surprised at how much I care about who wins the Super Bowl. But I don’t hate the other team or the fans who root for them. And, in a strange way, that seems like a lesson in how democracy is supposed to work.

I did not vote for President Trump, and I am concerned about the impact of his adversarial style on our political discourse, which was bad enough already. Too often, in my view, he appeals to our worst instincts and impulses. My tendency is to retreat. My candidate lost. My life is full. Why should I stay engaged with politics when the political climate discourages me?

But that kind of retreat won’t do. Citizens need to stay engaged. I need to stay engaged. We should all care about what our leaders do in our names. We should care about the impact of policies on the most vulnerable among us.

At the same time, we all need to remember not to hate the opposition—the leaders or those who support them. My goal is to support the policies that seem to me to be best for our country without demonizing those who differ from me.

In this effort, things like the Saint David’s annual meeting give me hope. We came together yesterday to talk about our common life. People showed up. They talked. We shared ideas. And together we will move into our future, facing the challenges that come our way.

Thankfully we are not divided among ourselves about significant issues in the way our country is and in the way that sports inevitably must be (since somebody wins and somebody loses!). Still, our ability to work together, in God’s name, gives me hope that democracy can work as long as citizens stay engaged and remember that we are all in it together. May that be true of our nation under President Trump!

Today our nation celebrates Dr. Martin Luther King, Junior. King is one of my heroes, and I find him inspiring for all kinds of reasons and in all kinds of ways.

What makes King a particularly appropriate person to commemorate with a national holiday is his powerful summons to our country to live up to its own ideals. King dedicated his life to the ideals of liberty, equality, and justice. He found those ideals in our founding documents, especially the Declaration of Independence.

But King was also keenly aware of the many ways the United States failed to live up to the promise of those ideals. King could have ignored our national failure. Or, King could have given up on our nation. Instead, King believed in America enough to fight for our collective soul, and his faith in America’s potential has made us all a little better. Truly King was a great citizen and patriot.

Like our nation, the Episcopal Church commemorates King. This, too, strikes me right and good, but for quite different reasons. We commemorate King for his Christian witness. The Declaration of Independence was not the only, or even the primary, source for King’s ideals. King’s witness for justice was rooted in the message of the Old Testament prophets. King was sustained through the hard times by a powerful sense of God’s nurturing presence and a powerful faith in the good news of Jesus Christ. Truly King was a model Christian.

King was able to combine his Christian faith and his public, political witness. Indeed it was that combination that made him so effective. As a member of the Social Justice Commission of our Diocese, I wrestle in my own way to apply the Christian gospel as I understand it to the challenges our nation faces today. My considerably lower profile struggles for Christian justice make me even more grateful for what Dr. Martin Luther King Junior was able to accomplish in his short lifetime.

My hope and my prayer is that this day will inspire all of us to follow the example of Dr. King, a great Christian citizen and patriot.

As the parent of a teenager and a twenty-year-old, I think a lot about the balance of holding on and letting go in relationships. When my children were young, I or some other responsible adult monitored their every move. In another few years, they will be independent adults who don’t need any monitoring at all. Right now, they are somewhere in between, and exactly where in between seems to change virtually every day.

And woe is me if I strike the wrong balance!! They resent what they consider excess monitoring. And I fear the possible consequences of too little monitoring!! We experienced a difference of opinion on precisely this question just last weekend.

Striking the right balance is particularly tricky with growing children, but the issue is certainly not limited to them. I have let some friendships atrophy because I didn’t hold on tightly enough, and I regret that. I have held onto some friendships after a former friend has moved on.

We face the same issue at Church. When someone begins attending St David’s, we all want to invite them into the community and make sure they know the many ways they could participate. But we don’t want to come on too strong or assume that people are more committed than they are. The same is true for people who are a casual part of the Saint David’s family, people who worship with us occasionally, but might not show up for several weeks at a time. What would be too much? And what counts as neglect?

Putting aside the important example of children, my impression is that we in our culture tend to err on the side of giving people too much distance. My own friendships have suffered more from neglect than from excess, and I believe I am typical. Americans are busy, and we mostly want to respect each other’s privacy. Add to that a little insecurity, and the result is a lot of loneliness and isolation. Indeed, I suspect the worst cases of holding on too tightly—stalking—stem in part from the stalker’s own sense of isolation and neediness.

As Christians, we are called to respect the dignity of every human being. That means, among other things, we have to allow the people in our lives the freedom to make their own choices about how they want to relate to us. But we are also called to love, and love means making ourselves available, even when it is a little scary or a little troublesome. May God give us all enough grace to do both, in something like proper measure!

Immediately after Christmas, I went downhill skiing for the first time in my life. I had three days of lessons, and one day to ski on my own. Mostly I fell down. On our last day, one of my sons videotaped me making a short run. Miraculously, I didn’t fall during that bit, but I certainly wasn’t graceful!

I am not a natural skier for all kinds of reasons. But the one that is most relevant is my need for control. On the slopes, I quickly realized that I preferred to go slow and remain in control as much as possible. The problem is, that doesn’t work. Slow skiing, so I was told, is actually harder than going fast. I needed to let myself go, at least a little bit. But I couldn’t do it, not really.

I will never be a good skier, and that is OK. But skiing is a pretty good metaphor for life, particularly as we face the new year. If we spend our energy protecting ourselves, maintaining our own control at all times, refusing to take a chance, we will likely miss out on the best things in life. More to the point, we will almost certainly miss out on some of what God calls us to do.

I do not know what the new year holds for me and my family. I do not know what it holds for Saint David’s. But I am pretty sure that it will include some surprises, some challenges, some situations that call me out of my comfort zone. In those moments, I have to be willing to lean in, to face the challenge, to trust that God will get me through.

And, to continue the metaphor, I will almost certainly fall down a few times. But that is OK. Trying and falling is more fun—and more faithful—than refusing even to try.

All that is to say, I hope to live in the new year better than I skied last week. I hope I can let go of my need for control enough that I can truly enter into the adventure with God that awaits me and all of us.